Patrick Diedrich and Vargold Training

Written by Nick Italiano

Vargold,  a new  online survival skills training program, has recently launched its first course. The goal of Vargold is to help people in urban and suburban spaces develop essential survival and outdoor skills. Before we dive into talking about the program, we need to talk about the man behind it, Patrick Diedrich. 

Patrick is an experienced outdoorsman and instructor. He grew up in the great outdoors having a large state forest as a backyard. He later joined the U.S. Army. Upon the completion of his duty, he obtained a degree in Forestry and ran a consulting company. In addition to his work in Forestry, Patrick is also working as a professional writer and associate editor for Recoil/Offgrid magazine. As if all that isn’t enough, Patrick worked to develop and program and administer training for a local Search and Rescue Team. It was his experience working with that SAR Team that inspired him to create Vargold. Beyond his extensive professional experience, Patrick is an exceptional member of our community. He has tirelessly supported many of the amazing individuals, small businesses, and makers of the Outdoor Community.

During my time interacting with Patrick personally and taking the Vargold courses I have found Patrick to be a very genuine and humble person. He is very good at what he knows how to do, and makes no false claims to be an expert in areas he is not experienced in. This is something of paramount importance when looking into survival training programs; let’s face it survival skills training is pretty hot right now, and there are a lot of fake “experts” out there peddling less than reliable information. When it comes to survival skills bad information can lead to at best a bad experience and at worst injury or death. Patrick’s knowledge, experience, and genuine personality is exactly what anyone should be looking for in a survival skills instructor.

Vargold Basic Courses

As of the time of writing Vargold has one course available to the public, with 2 new courses coming soon. When I spoke to Patrick about course release timelines he expects new courses to be available monthly. The first course, Physical Fitness: The Key to Survival Success, is broken up into 5 modules, and each module has short videos that go over the course material. If listening and watching videos isn’t your thing, Patrick has the full video transcript below the video so you can read it. Everyone has different learning styles and the awareness of that is vital when it comes to online training platforms. I love the breakdown of the courses, because it allows students to either do a deep dive into the topics or just do small pieces when free time allows. Each section has short quizzes to ensure you retain the knowledge that was being disseminated to you. Upon the completion of each course a certificate is available to indicate that you have successfully completed the course requirements.

There is no time limit to completing the courses, allowing students to take in the information at their own pace. Vargold is set up as a monthly subscription, allowing members to access, complete, and review all basic courses as many times as needed. The ability to repeatedly access course material is incredibly valuable, as even the most experienced outdoors person may need a refresher on some topics, especially when they may not be experiencing certain situations or using specific skills on a regular basis. 

Vargold Guest Instructor Courses

As I have already stated, Patrick makes no claim to be an expert in every single survival topic, and because of that he is working with experts from across the survival and outdoor industries to develop specialty courses that will cover specific skill sets and geographic areas. Unlike the Basic Courses, these will be available on an ala carte basis, allowing members to sign up for topics or specific instructors that interest them. While these courses come at an additional cost many of the guest instructors may not offer any online training options, this gives members the opportunity to learn from some legends of the industry at the fraction of the cost of attending an in person event. The first guest course is in development now, but the list of people signed up to make courses in the future is impressive! Make sure to check out the Raise the Flag Podcast linked at the bottom of the page to get the full list!

My Experience Vargold

If you could not tell already, I am a big fan of what Patrick is doing at Vargold. Online learning is a valuable way to expose yourself to survival topics and skills that you can go out and practice on your own. The cost of the program is significantly less than attending most in person survival courses and as the program develops further you have access to far more knowledge and skills development than any one in person course can offer.

Patrick’s first course is all about how physical fitness acts as the basis for most survival skills. I couldn’t agree more with his decision to start there. Having a baseline level of fitness is probably the most overlooked aspect of survival. We are exposed to a ton of gear and a good number of people practicing skills on the forums and various social media platforms, but very few people are talking about how important it is to stay in relatively good shape. All the cool gear in the world won’t amount to much if you lack the strength and endurance to move it across distance and during high stress situations.

In addition to Patrick’s expert instruction the course was loaded with supplemental materials to add further value to the course. Having the ability to review real life survival scenarios really helped drive the overall point of subject matter home. I left the course feeling incredibly inspired to improve my physical state, with the tools I needed to properly evaluate where I was and what I needed to work on. While most children don’t like it, I loved that I was able to walk away from each module with homework. Having follow up work really helps to reinforce the value of each lesson in a real and tangible way.

One of the two upcoming courses expand upon the physical fitness aspect with some basic physiology. This is really valuable information for every human to have that is definitely not common knowledge. In survival and high stress situations it is important to listen to your body, the Physiology course will give you the tools you need to accurately “hear” what your body is saying. The second upcoming course relates to Mindset, and if you are familiar with my page and my own courses on the Black Flag Outdoor Academy you know how much Mindset means to me! 

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m very excited about what Vargold is bringing to the table. Patrick brings his years of outdoor, military, and SAR training experience right to your computer, smart phone, or tablet. He is tailoring each course to provide valuable knowledge and practical exercises that you can practice in your home or in the wilderness. While the program is still very new, based on the course material I have seen so far and the conversations I have had with Patrick, I am very confident Vargold will be one of the premier online survival training platforms available. While the program is in its infancy Patrick is offering the first three months of training for free. This is a great opportunity to check out what he is offering and the format in which he is delivering these courses! 

Check out the links below for more information on Vargold!